Sold for $1 To The Hawthorne Brothers

For a long, embarrassing moment, I forget how to speak. The words are at the tip of my tongue, but Adrian's eyes are boring holes through my face and into my brain, cutting off the part that connects to speech.

"Then again," he murmurs, "I doubt you had any time between the jobs and shifts you had to pick up to learn how to dance."

He releases my hand abruptly and I lose my footing a bit. Adrian's eyes dance with curiosity as he folds his arms. "My brother is...reckless. He does things as he wants, with no regard of how it affects others, as long as he's having fun. I would've expected you to know better, Miss Wilson."

His gaze trails over my body with barely a flicker of interest-not like the gaping stare the bartender gave. And yet, heat travels down the path his eyes take, pooling in my belly. I will myself to ignore it.

He doesn't think it's pretty. He's probably calculating how much it cost and why Julian had to spend so much money on someone like me.

I cross my arms over my chest, defensively. "I'll return it tomorrow. It didn't come with a tag, but I'm sure I can persuade them to take it. After all, it was your brother who suggested something outrageously expensive."

I feel bad for throwing Julian under the boss, but he dragged me into it.

Adrian tuts softly. "It looks good on you."

Huh?

I stare at him, unblinking. My lashes lift and fall, once. Faster, twice. He did not just give me a compliment? I pull my bottom lip between my teeth, feeling very self-conscious all of a sudden. "What?" he asks. "Would you rather I said yellow doesn't look good on you? That it doesn't complement your eyes and the way they shine under the chandelier light?"

"I-"

A flush rises quickly to the back of my neck. I feel...hot. I glance around, searching for something. A waiter, a glass of cold water-a drink, for heavens sake. Because either Adrian Hawthorne had a concussion before he came up to me or I'm hallucinating.

"But if you were to throw yourself into the arms of any man here-" his voice turns serious, "-you'll only end up giving them bloody ties. And then, I'd have the unfortunate responsibility of explaining how someone with no social graces got into a party like this."

"So, you see, Miss Wilson," his eyes narrow and his tone deepens with a note of distaste," perhaps you should've stayed home after all."

I take back everything I just said.

Adrian Hawthorne didn't hit his head and sudden become a normal member of society. He's still the arrogant, narcissistic asshole I know. And the heat in my stomach is because I haven't had anything to eat since I left the campus.

Julian promised me overpriced caviar.

"You know what?" I purse my lips tightly with a bitter smile. "I get it. I'm going to stay out of your way. I won't bother you with the insult of watching me make a fool of myself, just because I'm doing my best to fit in with your social circle."

A lump thickens in the back of my throat and my eyes sting with tears. "I'm going to put myself in time-out, find a corner and stay there until you're ready to send me away to where you think I belong."

I march away without another word-without waiting for the response I know will never come-swiping my eyes angrily with the back of my hand. I move out of the way, just in time to avoid a waitstaff carrying a tray of bubbly glasses.

I change my mind at the last minute, snagging one.

"Ma'am," she protests weakly, but I'm tipping my head back already and letting it pour down throat. The liquid is thick and fruity, not like the punch and burn I expected. I scoff with a sharp breath, staring at the glass with disappointment. "You too?" My voice cracks pitifully.

"Here," the server hands me another, a smile touching her lips. She tilts her head when I stare at it questioningly. "The people who asked for it won't miss it anyway. They're probably blacked out by now. And," she says in a hushed, excited whisper as she leans closer, "it's a twenty-year-old bottle of rum. If you can't taste it, why would you drink it?"

I end up with a bottle of rum, standing outside on the balcony, away from the party and the noise. The evening-night-breeze beats on my skin mercilessly. I shiver, wrapping an arm tightly around my chest as I take another swig from the bottle.

It's still sticky and sweet, but it fights off some of the cold.

I hate it here.

I didn't think ending up in the home of the man who picked me up like a discounted tab at a hole-in-the-wall diner was going to magically turn my life around...but I didn't think it was going to be this horrible.

I don't have to worry about money, tuition or a roof over my head, but now I have to deal with a narcissist who doesn't miss any opportunity to remind me of how inadequate I am, compared to him.

Alina Wilson, pauper. Adrian Hawthorne, CEO of Hawthorne Industries, billionaire and recluse.

A tear slides down my cheek. I don't bother brushing it away this time. My lips are all bruised from holding the back and the wind, brushing harshly against the tiny cuts, sting horribly.

I want to go home.

I'm not sure where that is, but I'm done being strong.

I go to take another swig, only to discover that the bottle's empty. "Crap." I shake it, growing furious by the second. I'm nowhere near drunk. The server said it was aged rum, but she must've been confused.

"Oh well," I shrugged. I'm Murphy's Law little experiment. If anything can go wrong, it's bound to go wrong for me. I slowly bend down, placing the bottle on the ground. The floor tilts as I try to stand up and my head lolls forward, dangling off my neck. My vision swims as my surrounding blurs into a mix of hazy colors and distorted images.

 "Woah," I mutter as I grip the railing, slurring the word. "That was trippy."

A tiny, high-pitched laugh that resembles nothing like me, pours out. I shake my head. "Gotta try again...slowly."

I turn, raising one foot. The ground distorts, sinking deeper and then magically rising higher than my shoe. I squint in confusion, trying to make sense of it, while balancing on one foot.

Bad idea.

It happens in slow drunken motion. My arms flail out, my shoes fly off my feet, landing somewhere in the dark and my legs give way from underneath me, like a rug roughly pulled forward. And then I'm falling.

I open my mouth to scream for help, but nothing comes out. Just pure horror, coursing through my veins and the late dawning that perhaps I shouldn't have drunk the half-bottle the staff snuck out for me.

It was rum, after all.

I close my eyes, thinking about all the things I thought about doing. The boring goals on my list. My graduation walk in mere months.

This is how I die, I think to myself. In a yellow, expensive dress I was going to return, outside a party where I don't belong, drinking stolen rum. From a split brain.

I wait for the end-

And end up slamming into something hard, with a firm grip digging into my waist. I feel something beating against my ear. Thump. thump. thump. Warm breath floods my ear as an amused drawl fills the thundering silence of my near-death incident.

"Is this a desperate cry for help, Miss Wilson. Or are you trying to appear more approachable due to your lack of social etiquette?"